10”-Class Media Tablets Set to Extinct – Intel PC Group Chief.

Apple iPad media tablet with 9.7” display made a revolution in 2010, but slates with smaller screens have been slowly, but surely gaining market share. Intel Corp. believes that going forward the trend will continue and tablets with 10”-class displays will rapidly erode as customers will adopt more compact form-factors for slates and larger form-factors for notebooks.

Kirk Skaugen, vice president and general manager of Intel's PC Client Group, said he has confidence that the 10” media tablet form-factor will "rapidly erode" this year in favor of more compact 7” to 8”tablets while larger 10” tablets will be assimilated by notebook-tablet hybrids with convertible displays and detachable screens, reports CRN web-site.

“The biggest trends right now are convertibility and detachability,” said Mr. Skaugen.

Intel has already demonstrated hybrid tablets with detachable keyboards code-named North Cape. Besides, the company plans to make touchscreens compulsory on ultrabooks featuring Core i-series “Haswell” central processing units. Besides, those laptops will come with facial recognition and voice recognition software, which is supposed to make them more consumer friendly.

While Intel seems to be confident that its hybrid and convertible approaches will let it grab higher share on the rapidly growing market of ultra-mobile devices, it does not seem that the trends the chipmaker outlines are applicable to the whole market. Apple has no plans to discontinue its 9.7” iPad, Samsung Electronics also continues to sell its 10.1” slates. Moreover, neither of the top tablet makers have yet unveiled convertible tablets, except Asustek Computer, whose Transformer-series can hardly be called popular.

Intel plans to start selling its Core i-series 4000-family “Haswell” in June, 2013. Its partners are going to support the launch with new breeds of notebooks, tablets and convertibles based on the new chips.

Discussion

Intel wishes.... Intel wishes that there was a clear delineation of platforms so their ultrabook platform is able to get some traction amongst consumers. But 10" tablets are here to stay, particularly as CPUs get more efficient and a lighter battery can be installed making the device as light to handle as a book.

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I'm inclined to agree. Although improved portability might be a factor pushing some people towards smaller tablets, the main factor is more likely cost. It's quite likely that the larger form factors may get cheaper, as well as lighter. The inevitable arrival of foldable and/or rollable screens will change the landscape, albeit 2-5 years into the future.

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4.

Another useless attempt at jawboning away the inevitable.

I seldom use my laptop any more and returned a Surface Pro as too heavy.

I love my Nexus 7 & 10. If Intel wants to be relevant, let them partner to create a smaller form factor for the tablet. The Nexus 10 measures 10-3/8" x 7" overall for an active screen size of 8-1/2" x 5-3/8".

I would pay a LOT more than current Asus prices for a slimmed down hi-res Nexus 8 (the new sweet spot for tabs, I think) with full HD, a quad processor, more RAM and 'real' USB3.

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Well... I have a Galaxy Note, it's quite small enough to carry around and not big enough to use as a home infotainment device. For the later (the home device) I would prefer a 10" screen - much more convenient for this usage scenario. Since it's home use only, the weight isn't an issue. The 7" or 8" wouldn't fit both - it's too big to carry outside and too small for decent home usage. So Intel is quite not right here.

That said, there is market for 7/8" devices - for people who don't want to have more than one device.